‘China, US looking for economic stimulus that comes from militarization’

Filipino and American marines storm a beach to "rescue" American soldiers held by enemies as part of joint military exercises in Ternate Cavite, 70 kilometers South of Manila (AFP Photo / Jay Directo) / AFP

Neither China nor the US are interested in full-on military confrontation but both want to play up the potential for it as it allows them to divert more government funds to the defense sector, editor of an independent news web site James Corbett told RT.

Amid increasing tension in the South Pacific region, especially
over America’s growing military footprint, it is reported the
Philippines is transforming Ulugan Bay and nearby villages into a
major naval base that may host US warships. Ulugan is only 160
kilometers from the Spratly archipelago, a fiercely contested
area in the South China Sea.

RT:What will this "military upgrade" mean
for the villagers themselves?

The Philippines and the United States signed a 10-year security
pact when US President Barack Obama visited Manila in April. It
could soon allow a much greater American military presence on
Filipino soil, including on expanded bases. In May the two
countries carried out two weeks of naval war games.

James Corbett: We have to look at the examples
of other parts of this region that have been militarized in
similar ways and perhaps one of the analogies that comes to mind
is Okinawa in Japan, where the residents have been fighting a
decades-long battle against the US military in terms of their
base in Okinawa and some of the problems that have been caused by
it, including plane crashes and even rapes by some of the
military personnel who have been stationed there of some of the
local populations. That has become a pretty large sticking point
for the locals in Okinawa, and it does provide at least a pattern
that we might look for in terms of building up these bases in
other areas of the region.

RT:Do you think that the creation of
military base will indeed help to solve the territorial disputes
in the area?

JC: It is unlikely that the creation of this
base will solve any dispute so much as inflame the disputes that
are already ongoing. This is quite demonstrable from the fact
that several million dollars are going to be spent apparently to
upgrade this base, but just to put that into comparison, the
Chinese military spent 119 billion dollars last year on its total
defense budget. I think that this is really just a drop in a
bucket when it comes to actual defense in the region, but it does
show that the Philippines are becoming more and more determined
to put up some type of military defense against what China is
doing, especially in the Spratly Islands archipelago. And they
are doing so by increasingly turning to the US, which of course
only further inflames some of the tensions that are developing
now between the US and its allies in China.

RT:According to Philippines officials,
these initiatives are aimed at balancing China's military
expansion in the region. So maybe it is a rational move after
all?

JC: I don’t think that this is rational
maneuvers on either side. I think what is really going on is both
China, the US and its allies are playing to their respective
political bias and they are looking for economic stimulus that
comes from militarization, so they are looking to divert more
government funds towards the defense sector. If that is the
intended consequence, I think what we are seeing developing in
the Asia-Pacific region is the prime example of that and it’s a
very successful operation in that regard. I don’t think either
side is really interested in full-on military confrontation at
this point because I don’t think this would play into either
side’s long-term strategic interests in the region. But both are
very interested in playing up the potential for such
confrontation because it allows them to further centralize
control militarily and politically as they continue towards
ramping up these tensions in the conflicts. And of course it
allows China the excuse to go further and further towards making
on-the-ground reality in the South China sea towards so-called
9-line, have been trying to make a reality of the naval presence.
These types of tensions and the supposed response that they are
now doing to the supposed aggression from the other side is a
convenient justification for that.

RT:Earlier, the Philippines signed an
agreement letting the American Navy operate at some of its bases.
What this increasing cooperation mean for the region?

JC: This has to be seen in the context of the
developing and furthering military relationship between the US
and Philippines. We could look back into January of this year
when the Philippines announced they were looking to buy two
frigates from the US Navy and then in April there was an
announcement of the agreement between the US and Philippines for
extended and deepen US military access to the Philippines that is
a part of the 10-year agreement. And now we see this latest
maneuver movement to building up a forward base in the Spratly
Island archipelago. This has to be seen as a part of the trend
towards deepening the US-Philippine military alliance. That goes
right along with developing US-Japanese military alliance,
US-Malaysian military alliance, US-Indonesian military alliance,
US-Australian military alliance. So this has to be seen as more
part of the regional trend which is developing, but it certainly
is interesting to watch how the US is gaining more access to the
region generally and to the Philippines in particular where they
weren’t necessarily welcomed with opened arms just a few years
ago.

RT:How can you characterize the US military
build-up in the Asia-Pacific?

JC: I think that one way of looking at it,
either we can look at this as a process of encirclement China is
responding to, or we can look at the very aggressive moves that
China has been making in the South China Sea trying to push some
of the claims against some of the territorial neighbors. Both
elements are at play. I don’t think it is necessarily a cause and
an effect situation, its part of the feedback loop where one side
makes a move, the other seems to respond to it, so the other side
responds to the response, and it just keeps building upon itself.

When you are caught in this type of feedback loop, it runs the
risk of running into some type of military confrontation scenario
not only necessarily because any of the politicians involved want
that to happen, but simply because when you have all of these
ships in these highly disputed territories that are at times
running into each other, as we have seen recently for example in
the Vietnam exclusion zone where there have been attempts to
place a Chinese oil rig, we start to see this type of incidents
that could become a hard-war scenario perhaps inadvertently. As
we sit on the hundredth anniversary of the start of WWI, that
started because of the assassination of a politician in Eastern
Europe, that I don’t think anyone could have foresaw to become
global conflict, we have to at least keep this precedent in mind
as we watch the increasing militarization in the Asia-Pacific
region.

RT:What kind of interests does America have
in Asia? Is it just counterbalancing China?

JC: I wouldn’t justify that. I think the
American administration would attempt to justify it by the fact
that of course America as a Pacific nation does have an interest
in what is happening in the region and that can be seen in more
examples. I’m sure they will try to point at the precedent of
Pearl Harbor back in 1941 and the fact that the Japanese imperial
movements in East Asia did turn out to have an effect on the US
directly as Pearl Harbor was attacked. The US has naturally had
an interest in the region for a very long time and has for a very
long time been a de facto military power in the region. It’s a
power that tends to operate through proxies, most notably perhaps
Japan, which became part of the US military umbrella since the
time of the occupation after the WWII. At this point the argument
that would be put forward is that if China was simply allowed to
aggress and to gradually expand its presence into territorial
disputed areas, then it would eventually have the effect on the
US. That’s the way that it would be framed by the US
Administration and it was quite explicitly put by Chuck Hagel at
the Asia Defense Forum last month where he said that China was a
destabilizing presence in the region and if we want to maintain
the status quo, it will require the cooperation of the US with
many of its allies in the region to make sure that China doesn’t
destabilize that region.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.